Li Kunwu
Li Kunwu (* 1955 in Yunan Province , China ) is a Chinese cartoonist .
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Li Kunwu has published over 30 comic albums in China. For a long time he mainly drew propaganda comics for the Communist Party.
He is currently engaged in ethnographic studies of the many cultural minorities in Yunan. Part of it is "A Life in China", a trilogy that he wrote and drew together with the French author Philippe Ôtié.
Life in china
The three-part graphic novel tells China's story from the rise of Mao to the present day from the perspective of normal Chinese and with a wealth of amazing details. The Sino-French cooperation can therefore also be interpreted as an attempt to mediate the history of Chinese communism, which is prejudiced in the West.
The main character is Xiao Li, the drawing son of an official of the Chinese Communist Party and his family.
Volume one - "My Father's Time" - covers the period from Mao's seizure of power in 1949 to his death in 1976, with particular emphasis on the so-called "Great Leap Forward" and the "Great Cultural Revolution ". Xiao Li experiences the era from the perspective of an adolescent and as a person directly affected.
Volume two - "The Time of the Party" - tells of the power struggle after Mao's death as well as of Xiao Li's several attempts to become a member of the Communist Party.
The final volume three - "The time of money" - deals with the time after 1980 and the unexpected changes that the "social market economy" brings with it. Xiao Li, the “Little Li”, has meanwhile matured into Lao Li, the “Old Li”, works as an illustrator for a large newspaper and has started a family.
The western media are very positive about the trilogy. "The excellent graphic novel" opens up "a multi-layered tableau (...) artful interlinking of individual and general story" and should be one of the "most ambitious comics of recent years".
Tagesspiegel judged the graphic novel as "passionate, true to detail, instructive". Le Monde notes "the story does not try to gloss over reality, nor to tell a melodrama. It only shows the revolutionary chaos."
Li Kunwu and Philippe Ôtié themselves describe their intentions as follows: "To make the younger generations feel the important and fundamental changes that China has undergone in the last 50 years".
After its publication in France (2009) and the German-speaking countries (2012/2013), "A Life in China" was also published by SDX Joint Publishing in Hong Kong and China.
Publications
- With Philippe Ôtié: A Life in China 1 - My Father's Time . Edition Moderne , Zurich 2012. ISBN 978-3-03731-102-8
- With Philippe Ôtié: A life in China 2 - The time of the party . Edition Moderne, Zurich 2013. ISBN 978-3-03731-104-2
- With Philippe Ôtié: A life in China 3 - The time of money . Edition Moderne, Zurich 2013. ISBN 978-3-03731-105-9
- Lotus feet . Edition Moderne, Zurich 2015. ISBN 978-3-03731-137-0
- The railroad above the clouds . Edition Moderne, 2016. ISBN 978-3-03731-147-9 (report on the history of the Yunnan Railway )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Growing up with Mao. Tagesspiegel, December 12, 2012
- ↑ The great contagion. Berliner Zeitung, February 8, 2013
- ↑ Enthusiastic catastrophe. Tagesspiegel, January 16, 2013
- ↑ Un manga chez Mao. Le Monde, July 25, 2009
- ↑ Father Mao. Sunday, 19./20. January 2013
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Li, Kunwu |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Li, Kdchun-wu; Li, K'an-wu |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | chinese comic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1955 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Yunan Province , China |